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Curve, by Cableguys, is at first glance a utilitarian looking, grey and white subtractive synthesiser. In reality, it has a ton of sound design possibilities and a few unique features… but how does it sound?

Manufacturer: Cableguys

Price: €119/$159

Compatibility: Mac/PC, VST/AU host

UPDATE: On the 17th July 2011 Curve 1.4 was released, and adds in the monophonic options that we lamented the lack of in this review. Take a look at our news release for the full skinny, and read on for the rest of the review!

One of Curve’s big features is its waveform drawing capability

One of Curve’s big features is its waveform drawing capability. You can design up to ten waveforms in a patch, and draw the waveform itself with up to twenty node points. A really nifty thing happens when you alter the waveform; in the background, a bar chart indicates the harmonics and their amplitude in real time as you alter the curve. You don’t have to create all your waveforms from scratch of course, there are presets for sine, square, triangle and pulse ready and waiting, but it’s a great way to get an individual sounding patch and also learn a little bit more about the science behind sound design while you play.

The filter section has a bunch of settings, spread over 6dB, 12dB, and 24dB per octave cut off sharpness. All have a low and high pass setting, 24dB has band pass, and 12dB has band pass, notch and peak settings too. Resonance is really smooth, and screams tastefully at high settings.

Resonance is really smooth, and screams tastefully at high settings

There’s no way to change the routing of the oscillators and filters. The sum of the oscillators goes into filter one then filter two in series. Other than that, though, modulation capabilities in Curve are impressive. There are four LFOs, a dedicated amp envelope and two assignable ones, and pretty much anything can be modulated by anything else with a really simple cross referencing system, including frequency modulation of each oscillator by another.

Curve’s simple and maybe slightly uninspiring user interface belies the power of the synth – but it’s a power that exponentially rises based on the work you put into creating interesting patches for it. Because many synths have some form of analogue modelling in them, creating imperfect waveforms and simulating unstable VCOs, Curve can sound quite thin and basic in comparision when using its basic waveforms. Draw your own, though, and the nuances of each unique waveform thickens up the sound, especially when modulating everything by everything else.

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